Feeling Listless and Having a Hard Time Concentrating

When you are in the process of grief, sometimes the pain comes over you keenly, a powerful wave of feeling that leaves you sobbing. Other times you may feel numb. And still other times, you may feel in between these two, neither experiencing the pain in its totality, nor feeling entirely numb. This third state may feel like a kind of listlessness and difficulty concentrating. You may find yourself moving between thoughts, walking between rooms, looking here and looking there, without really being anywhere in particular. You may start and stop tasks without completing them. This listlessness may feel like a vague discomfort in your body and in your mind, but it’s hard to pin down exactly what feels uncomfortable.

This can be a natural part of grief.

Sometimes what is happening is that you are so exhausted with all the grief and pain, that you are pushing some difficult feelings away. This is profoundly understandable—you’re physically and emotionally exhausted. Your wanting to take a break makes all the sense in the world. But sometimes when you push the feelings away you may find that they don’t really disappear, but retreat to the peripheries of your experience, and you feel their weight in a vague way in your body and your mind. Walking between rooms, feeling listless, having a difficult time focusing—you are trying to find relief and to move freely, but you feel like you can’t get comfortable. There is so much feeling and weight that is out of view.

Or perhaps what you’re experiencing in this listlessness and difficulty concentrating is that the normal rhythms and patterns of your life feel unfamiliar to you now, in this new life without the person you have lost. You may be walking between rooms, keeping on moving, starting and stopping tasks without finishing them, because the physical space you’re in and the things that you’re doing no longer feel as familiar and routine, and as comforting, as they once did. What once felt familiar now feels strange and uncomfortable. And this too is profoundly understandable, because when you love someone and you lose them, especially when you shared a space with them, or when you shared parts of your life with them—the world you inhabit can feel foreign, colder, and disorganized. It’s no wonder that you may find yourself wandering even in your own home, as if you are lost.

Grief counseling can be a deep support in this. Together we can help you make sense of this listless feeling. We can support you to feel your feet on the ground again in a solid way. Rather than drifting through the routines and spaces of your life you can begin to feel more present in them again—like you know them and can trust them. In the safe and caring space of our therapy work together, you can also begin to feel safe enough to feel more of the emotions that you were pushing away, that had before felt too difficult or dangerous to feel on your own. And will go at the pace you need, paying attention to the rhythm that feels best to you, and supporting you in the ways you need as you move through this pain and whatever else is there for you.

If you are grieving and looking for support, if you are feeling listless and distracted—whatever you are feeling—I invite you to contact me at (510) 500-9722 so that we can talk about how grief counseling can help.